Benefits of playing the piano in your retirement

People who are on verge of retirement often think of how they will spend their time during their retirement. Retirees have a lot of free time and they don’t understand how they will be able to spend it to keep themselves engaged and content.

If you are a person who is facing a similar problem then here is some exciting thoughts for you.

Think about all the dreams and passions that you wanted to pursue in your younger days. Retirement is the right time to pursue the passions that you were not able to fulfill when you were busy supporting your family. Maybe you thought it was impractical to pursue a passion of yours at that point in time.

Retirement is the right time to fulfill a long sought desire to take some beginner piano lessons and piano is very easy to learn regardless of your background. The thought of playing your favorite song on the piano is quite an exciting idea for many people.

Music is important in all aspects of life and can have a positive impact on your psychological health: music relaxes, touches, motivates and energizes people even when they are living in an extended care facility.

A vast amount of research has been conducted on the potential therapeutic benefits provided by music. Playing music can be soothing and stimulating to your primary senses (touch, sight) and keeps you calm and composed. A breakthrough study conducted on elderly persons in America has proven that group piano lessons have helped retirees to relieve their anxiety, depression and loneliness levels. These three factors play a crucial role in your overall health and piano can stimulate the immune system and improve players' overall health.

Piano playing is a kind of ultrasound therapy that sends sound vibrations into your body improving circulation and relaxing muscles. Piano playing gets the energy flowing and gives the same results that you would get from yoga, meditation, acupuncture and shiatsu.

Tickling the ivories relaxes you both mentally and physically. It causes your brain to release beta endorphins and dopamine, which in turn, gives you a sense of mental well being. Thus, by playing the piano regularly, you can improve your psychological health considerably.

It is never too late to learn the piano and you will be delighted when you know how fast you can learn and advance.

Guest author Dan Maynard is a classically trained pianist, music composer and publisher of a website that reviews pianos. Dan also dedicates time to his other passion in life: reading and studying Internet marketing.